County Adopts Plan to Cut the Cost of Legal Defense

The San Diego County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday voted to cut legal expenses by creating a new county legal department and expanding the duties of the Public Defender’s Office.

The unanimous action creates a county office to handle criminal court cases in which the public defender has a conflict of interest. It also significantly expands the number of public defender deputies handling juvenile court cases.

Under the current system, the county pays hourly fees to about 350 area lawyers in private practice through the Department of Alternate Defense Counsel, commonly known as the “conflicts office.” Most of those cases involve multiple defendants or, in juvenile court, any number of a child’s relatives. By replacing private attorneys with salaried county lawyers, county budget planners project an annual cost savings of $7 million beginning in fiscal year 1992.

The Constitution requires that poor defendants in criminal cases and some persons involved in juvenile court cases be provided with free counsel.

The county will immediately begin seeking lawyers for the new legal office in anticipation of taking over some cases as early as September and all cases by December, the county staff said.

The department was created over the opposition of private lawyers who stand to lose a large source of revenue.

Before Tuesday’s vote, several attorneys, including representatives of the county Juvenile Justice Bar Assn. and Women’s Criminal Defense Bar Assn., criticized the plan for the new department as flawed and based on inaccurate projections of court caseloads and legal bills.

However, it was the soaring fees paid to private lawyers that prompted the county to act.

County planners had projected that fees paid to attorneys in conflict-of-interest cases would be $2.3 million for fiscal 1990. It is now projected that cost will be $14 million.

The 609% increase is due, in part, to the rise in drug-related cases and the difficulty in predicting caseloads in a given year.